Lion King Movie Review

"Remember who you are..."

There are some movie quotes that just stay with you.  This is one of them.  Anyone who has seen The Lion King remembers the iconic words spoken by Mufasa.  That's exactly what the 2019 re-make of The Lion King did... it remembered who (or in this case, what) it was when it originally debuted in 1994.

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I was excited when I found out that Disney was making a "live-action" like version of The Lion King.  Eliot and I had seen The Jungle Book and I was amazed at how life-like the CGI animated animals were.  I was interested to see how that would play out with another CGI re-make of an iconic Disney movie.

The Lion King was pretty much the same as the original.  The greatest differences were a few of the quotes from Timon and Pumbaa, but they were hilarious.  My favorite part of the movie was actually the replacement to Timon's hula dance.  (I won't spoil it if you haven't seen the movie... but I was roaring in laughter both times I saw it.)

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Of course, the parts that were the most iconic in the original were the most iconic in this movie.  I got chills and teared up quite a bit during the opening scene with all of the animals in the Circle of Life intro.  The other part that was a bit emotional for me was when Simba takes his place as king and walks up Pride rock after defeating Scar.

I'm always a sucker for the music and costumes, but since they're all animals, there weren't any costumes to drool over.  The scenery was beautiful and life-like.  The music was good.  I'm not sure if I'll go out and buy the soundtrack but I might get it eventually.  (It wasn't like Aladdin when I left the theater on a mission to purchase a CD of the soundtrack immediately.)  I did enjoy The Circle of Life, Hakuna Matata and Can You Feel the Love Tonight.  I missed Scar's song, Be Prepared, but they way they did it made sense in this movie.  I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either.

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I think the biggest complaint that I've read is that due to the animals "realistic" look, they aren't able to emote as well as an animated version.  I have to admit, I agree with this thought.  I wasn't sucked into the animals emotions as much because they looked like real lions.  The animals weren't able to convey feeling through the looks on their faces and that made it hard to get as into it as I was in the original 1994 movie.

Overall, I enjoyed the re-make of The Lion King.  The animators did a great job of making the movie look like it was filmed in Africa with real animals.  Did it leave room for improvement?  I wouldn't say that, but I wasn't as emotionally invested as I was in the original.  I'm sure that I'll watch it again but it probably won't be one of the Disney movies that I watch on repeat over and over again.  °o°